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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

- Edgar Prado's agent explains their decision to ride probable turf horse Adriano over possible turf horse Monba and slow dirt horse Tale of Ekati in the Derby: "We won on Adriano in the Lane's End before we rode the other two. We felt obligated toward Graham." [Daily Racing Form] Trainer Graham Motion took the decision to mean: "he's endorsing the horse."

- Pennsylvania's slots program was supposed to be all about property tax relief for homeowners, and the initial returns are in. (Drum roll please......)

While the size of property tax reductions from slots revenue will vary among 500 Pennsylvania school districts, $169 is the average amount of relief statewide when school property tax bills go out in July, Michael Masch, state budget secretary, said yesterday. In Philadelphia, the slots money will go to lower the city's 4 percent wage tax rather than property taxes. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

$169, eh? Sounds like about enough for a night at the slots....with a little luck that is. The big winners are obviously the companies running the parlors, and the horsemen competing for the big purses. Of course, there are more casinos to come, and revenue is expected to surpass $1 billion as opposed to the $661.4 million available for tax relief this year.

Since at least 1978, when a state dam safety law took effect, the state has enjoyed the sole power to grant riparian rights on Pennsylvania waterways, state Senate lawyer Christopher Craig argued Tuesday.

Craig represents Sen. Vincent Fumo and six other lawmakers who have sued city officials over the permit. Fumo is "opposed to the casino at that site, period, because of the community opposition to it," Craig said after the session. [Associated Press]

5 Comments:

case
said...

Prado and Motion have a long relationship with each other going back to their winning days at Pimlico/Laurel/Delaware. Gotta respect that combo.

Delaware Park opens this weeekend and it's installing a steroid ban. However, the ban will have a "leniency" period that will last until September 30 ... that's almost the whole meet. Here's an article about it.http://tinyurl.com/52sycg

The Justice Seamus P. McCaffery mentioned in your post received some amount of fame as the judge for "Eagles Court" a few years back. He set up his court in the bowels of Veterans Satdium during Eagles games because of the boorish/drunken/violent behavior of the fans.

Case - Always got a kick out of reading about "Eagles Court" after all the trash talk about how ill-behaved NY fans are that I heard when I briefly lived in Philly a couple of decades or so ago! Sounds like Justice McCaffery has moved significantly up the ranks since that stint.

Prado's decision is puzzling to me, unless it is purely out of loyalty to Graham Motion. I don't see how anyone could objectively choose Adriano, a turf horse who beat a suspect bunch in at Turfway, over Monba, a horse that has won over the Derby track and comes in off a solid recent performance. Puzzling.